According to a new study published by Clinical Psychological Science–which you could read more about, if WordPress would allow my news links to link to any news–the number of American teenagers feeling “useless and joyless”–that is, depressed–increased by 33% from 2010-2015; and at the same time, teen suicides increased by 31% (http://theconversation.com/with-teen-mental-health-deteriorating-over-five-years-theres-a-likely-culprit-86996).
The author of the article I try in vain to link to believes something happened in 2012 to fuel this epidemic of teen depression. In 2012, she says, “smartphone” ownership in America passed the 50% mark–and a lot of teens were spending a lot of time online: much more than is good for them.
I’m not going to defend the smart phone. Anything carrying the label “smart” is almost certain to be bad for you. But this answer strikes me as far too simple.
The biggest thing missing in these teenagers’ lives is family. And family is even more important for young, developing children. But now both parents are chasing their careers all day, they think “quality time” is driving the kids to soccer for half an hour on the weekend, and they make up for what they know, deep down inside, to be neglect by buying their kids expensive goodies. Like smartphones.
And the kids go to public school where they learn that there is no God, their country sucks, their parents are idiots, the only sins are political sins as defined by left-wing teacher unions and the Democrat Party, abortion is a holy sacrament, Science Is Real and your life has no intrinsic meaning–and why, O 12-year-old, aren’t you having sex every chance you get? You must be a biggit!
The wonder is that they aren’t all depressed.
Keep your kids out of public school, make time to raise them yourselves, and don’t give them smartphones. And I’ll betcha anything the depression rate goes down.
I would agree, Lee, this is way beyond blaming smart phones. But this does point to my greatest peeve, we do absolutely nothing collectively as a nation to address mental health problems anywhere and everywhere.
Doug, you have the floor. What would you have the nation do? I’m ready to listen. I have my doubts about any collective action, and even bigger doubts about the people who would be responsible for defining it and taking it.
P.S., Happy Thanksgiving
Lee, I couldn’t agree more with your analysis. Parents have abdicated their responsibility of raising their children, instilling morals and values into them. They have instead handed them over to Hil-liary’s village for indoctrination.
Depression in teens – and the population at large – is increasing. The causes are myriad.. We can point to working parents, public education, toxic medications and vaccines, chem-trails, crooked politicians without morals, dead churches, and many more issues. The solution is simple: Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.
Also, the things teens have been told will make them happy — sex, social networking, fashion, popularity, etc. — don’t. So if they should be happy but aren’t, they imagine there’s something wrong with them.
And the things they’re told they’re entitled to — all the material possessions they want, popularity, and 24/7 happiness — elude them. So they believe life is empty.
What they need is a sense of obligation rather than rights. What they need is gratitude for whatever they do have. And mostly, what they need is God.
Nothing has done the modern human race more damage than the idea that they can have free-standing “happiness.”
My doctor friend has been telling me for years the suicide rate for young people is going to skyrocket because of the drugs they are putting children on when in elementary school. When I substitute in the elementary schools kids will come up to me and tell me it’s time for them to go to the nurse’s office for their meds (for some of them it is twice a day). But I agree with Lee, it is the home life that is the most important. The Bible teaches it is the parents’ responsibility to see that their children become educated and responsible (not the school’s).
Even pagan Romans knew better than us. Cato the Elder taught his son to read, because he didn’t want his child to owe something as important as reading to a stranger.